Hidden Key

N O T I C E: There's violence at the beginning of this so it might be upsetting to some readers.

☆

Ah! I bite my tongue, praying that I won’t cry out at the pain of Amory’s long nails ripping across the skin of my cheek. I’m used to it, used to everything he’s done to me. He has hit me, screamed at me, he has worked me so damn hard - by the time I was six I had lost so much weight that his blows would knock me across the room.

I can feel myself trembling, but stand up and dust myself off, staring at him. I would have said he was not bad-looking, if I wasn’t twelve and he wasn’t so cruel. His skin is very pale, with no color in his cheeks at all, but he is still pretty pretty. His eyes are red. Red as fire, he has always told me, red as blood. Red as the pain you will create with me, Allie, as we take back what has been stolen from us.

The first time he said that, my response almost killed me. Back then I didn’t know who he truly was. I just saw him as a man who had saved me.

He pretends to flinch dramatically, and then straightens and glares at me. “Luckily for you, I’m in a good mood.”

What is his problem, anyway?

I kneel at his feet, reaching for his hands. He smirks. I’ve done this a million times to him, so of course he’s used to it. I think he likes it. It’s a… routine, you could say. Something that doesn’t change every day. Something that stays the same.

☆ 60 years later ☆

“Esma,” I hear him say. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

I want to ignore him, but I can’t. We’ve been together for the longest time, the longest time I’ve ever been with any of my boyfriends. I won’t let it end now. Clay’s not like the others. He’s not someone I would dump for a tiny argument like this. I hover in the doorway, my back towards him. I’m like a leaf; ready to fly away at the slightest breeze. He has to be careful, I think. We’ll both be sorry if he isn’t.

The vibrating buzz of silence begins to creep into my ears, so I hold my breath, letting it consume me. It’s so calming knowing that…the world will never be quiet. I wouldn’t want to live in a quiet world. I need sound. Good thing Clay is such an amazing provider of that.

I can’t deny that I need him as much as I need the air I breathe.

☆ 60 years earlier ☆

“What’s the date, Allie?”

“Friday.” I can’t risk messing up on a day like today. My voice threatens to shake, but instead my hands do. I clasp them together tightly so Amory doesn’t see.

“What is the occasion?” he asks, knowing fully well what the occasion is. He’s testing me. Testing - though I never fail - if I know him. If I know what he wants. What he wants is for me to memorize everything about his mind. There’s something he’s working on. He works on it every day like today.

“It’s Friday the thirteenth, Amory,” I say confidently.

“The year, please.”

It must be a special day, other than him getting to work on his project. He never says anything like please or thank you - not like I’d want him to. I don’t have a choice doing the work he makes me do, training, after all, he saved me.

“2.0009.” I felt so lucky every time I said the date. I had been alive during the change from the year 1.9999 to 2.0000. I don’t remember, of course, because I was only three. Still.

“2.0009,” he echoes, a smile coming to his face. His eyes meet mine. “It’s ready.”

The words are honey to my ears. They’re poison to my head. The words are my dreams, my nightmares, and everything in between. They’re the shades of gray, all of them, revealed to the world. Yet they are only two words.

Then again, two words can mean the world.

I don’t dare to ask what the thing he finished is. Besides, I can guarantee that he’s going to show me. He trusts me. He’s so mean to me, but he trusts me.

“Come to the room I’ve been working in,” he says, motioning for me to follow him. I hesitate. What…no, I have to go with him. But still, he could be lying to me. No… my curiosity gets the best of me. I’m suspicious and excited at the same time. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I am not the cat. I know Amory’s weaknesses, I know how to defeat him. He knows that, too.

The thoughts cloud my vision, and soon I’m just following his voice. We walk for two minutes. It feels like two hours.

We get there. The room is not a room, but a balcony.

The sky is dark blue and purple, the stars white and yellow, glittering like fish’s scales and piercing through the few thin clouds drifting lazily by. The moon is a sliver, barely visible. 

I look at the man next to me, my heart pounding with fear. It slows to a calm, steady beat when I see the tears covering his eyes, a glossy coat. He walks to the far end of the balcony, where there’s a telescope pointed at Mars. The red planet is faint but it’s there, like Amory’s heart. I may not be able to see it or feel it, but as long as he’s alive, his heart is where it should be. His heart…is where fate put it.

I walk to where he is. He pulls on a knob on the telescope, and it pops out. He reaches his hand in and pulls out a key.

☆ 60 years later ☆

“I really like you, Esma,” Clay says.

“Nice choice of words,” I tell him coldly, stepping outside onto the old stone balcony.

He calls my name. “You can’t go out there, it’s not safe!”

“Now you care,” I mutter, my heart racing. I can’t think. This is too much, too unfamiliar.

He doesn’t hear me, which pisses me off even more. “You know it’s not safe, Esma.”

“What, I can’t hear you.”

“Esma!” he’s desperate now, I know. His voice is close to catching and I think his heart is beating as fast as mine is. “I- I love you?”

That won’t work. He doesn’t mean it. He’s lying. I’m such an idiot for liking him. He’s a jerk. He’s a horrible person. 

He’s too perfect… 

I… 

I hate him.

I slam the door, shivering in the cold air. The wind is strong, and my hair whips across my face. I realize for the first time that I’ve never been out here before. I’ve looked, who wouldn’t, but I’ve never actually come out. The stone floor is cold on my bare feet, and it’s covered with plants like ivy and moss. There’s an especially big clump of ivy on the far side, so I walk over, letting the fresh air calm me and clear my head. I pull away the ivy and it reveals a telescope, rusted with age. There’s a hole at the top of it, in which something glints dully. I reach in, not noticing that there could be bugs, poison spiders, maybe, and feel cool, rough metal under my fingertips. I pull it out. It’s a key.

☆ 60 years earlier ☆

The key is bright and golden, with a silver - a silver lining, you could say - on the part you hold. He gives it to me. “Allie, dear,” he says. He’s never called me ‘dear’, I notice. Interesting.

“Yes?”

“Do you consider yourself stronger than I am?”

I pause, thinking. I think he wants to hear his name, but at the same time, I have no idea if he’s honestly asking. “Truthfully?”

“Yes, Allie.”

“I am,” I tell him regretfully, bowing my head. “I think.”

He touches my chin, bringing it up so I’m looking at him. “Thank you,” he says quietly. Then he motions to the key. “Break it.”

“Excuse me?” I ask. “Did you say -”

“Break it.”  the kind Amory is gone, replaced by his normal self. His voice is hard, commanding. I’m not even sure the kind Amory was Amory. He’s like Gollum.

I take the key in both of my hands. What a shame to waste such a pretty material. I press down with my fingers, up with my thumbs. A crack forms with an audible ckkk sound. A silver mist seeps out of it, coming towards me. I gasp as it covers my head and face, but that makes me inhale it. It stings my eyes like pepper. As soon as it covers my ears, everything is muted, silent. I see Amory’s face blur, an evil sort of joy crawling onto it.

Now all I can see is white.

☆ 60 years later ☆

The key is rusted, too, just bits of gold showing through. The middle seems to have been cracked and then the pieces were glued back together. I wish…I wish Clay and I were the pieces of this key. We got broken apart, but then we were reunited. But of course, the key was stronger before it got glued, and the glue will wear out and the pieces will again be broken apart. It’ll be a cycle, if people continue to fix it. One day, someone will neglect the broken key, and it will stay like that. Forever, maybe. Everything comes to an end, no matter how amazing it is. Clay and I, we weren’t meant to be, no matter how much I want that to be true. I hold each end of the key tightly, putting pressure on the glue. The seal breaks, and a stream of silver mist comes towards me. I can feel my eyes widening. “Holy crap,” I mutter, in awe of the substance, and terrified. I want to run, but I can’t, it’s just so…so pretty. I plunge my face into it, loving the true silence that comes to me, the peace of it.

It burns my eyes so I’m forced to close them, and even with my eyes closed, I can see the silver-white color.

It’s all I can see.

☆

Be grateful for what you have, because at any moment you could lose it. 

Share it if you can, if you can realize that there are people who have lost it.

Don’t turn your back on it, unless you’re open to the possibility that it might turn its back on you.

Embrace it for its differences, and turn its disadvantages into something beautiful.